Burning Black
by Moonchild10
Summary: One-shot BBRae. Raven deals with the events of her birthday, and Beast Boy decides it's time to show her how much she truly means to him.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. **

**Yay! A new thingymabob! I've been itching to write this for a while. This is supposed to take place before the end of Birthmark, just before the scene where Raven is shown cutting her hair. It's like a deleted scene, I guess.**

**This is dedicated to my best friend Lisa, though she will never read this because she doesn't read TT fanfiction. **

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There was a murmur of commotion as Robin and Raven entered Titans Tower, a waterfall of worried jabber and confusion. The two were pounced upon by the other three Titans, all of whom were talking at once.

"Guys, take it easy!" Robin said. The three of them kept babbling concernedly. "Hey, guys!" Robin said. In a relative panic, the three teenagers failed to hear him. "**YOU GUYS!" **he said loudly. The three of them closed their mouths abruptly and turned their eyes in the direction of their leader. "One at a time, please," he said, raising one side of his mask because his eyebrows were not visible.

"What happened where did you guys go what's going on are you guys OK?" Beast Boy asked loudly in one breath.

"We're fine. We had a bit of a situation with Slade that needed to be dealt with," Robin explained calmly. Raven was standing slightly behind him with her arms crossed tightly, trying to feel less exposed. She felt that she had lost all dignity. Here she was, dressed in scarcely anything with her hair taking over her entire head, trying to hide the fact that the glowing symbols Slade had branded her with still showed in a few places, and now she and Robin were being interrogated. All she wanted was to get back to her room and put something on and meditate this all away as best she could.

"What happened back there? All I got was your call to get Star and BB back home safely and then I never heard from you again. It was like you disappeared," Cy said, stepping forward a bit.

"Raven was having some problems that needed to be taken care of," the Boy Wonder said mysteriously. None of his teammates questioned him any further.

"I am quite joyous that you are alright, Friend Raven!" Starfire said, attacking her pale friend with a hug, not seeming to notice that she was trying to blend in with the shadows. She squeezed Raven until she felt that her ribs were going to shatter, and then released her quickly. "We were all very worried and we are glad for your safe return! And your hair is looking…very nice!"

"Thank you, Starfire," Raven said, shrinking back a little more.

"Dude, what happened to you?" Beast Boy asked with a raised eyebrow in Raven's direction. She tried to conceal her relatively naked state.

"Nothing," she said, lowering her head. The curtain of violet hair fell over her face. "I appreciate everyone's concern…but right now all I need is to be alone." with that, she turned and walked in the direction of her room. Robin hurried after her.

"Raven…is there anything I can do?" he asked hastily.

Raven stopped walking for only a moment. "No," she told him as she started walking once more. "I just want to be alone."

**XXX**

Finally in the sanctuary of her dark room, Raven let out a sigh of relief as the door closed behind her. Breathing deeply, she inhaled the scent of her solitude. She slipped out of what was left of her leotard and put on a fresh one. She clasped one of her many identical belts around her waist, pulled her wristbands over the wrists of her leotard, starting to feel a bit more normal. As she pulled a new deep blue cloak over her shoulders, she glanced into the mirror at the girl before her. The long purple hair twisted untamed around her face. For a moment, a glowing red sign throbbed on her forehead above the small red gemstone and then disappeared. The mark of Scath. She stared into the cold violet eyes of the reflection before her.

"You are the fate of this world," she whispered frostily. "You will never do anything but destroy. You will never be good for anything else!" her breathing was getting ragged with angry tears she could not shed. "You can never beat this. You _will _destroy everything you care for and there is nothing you can do!"

The mirror glowed black with unbridled energy and shattered into a million tiny fragments.

"Dammit, Raven!" she told herself, covering her head with her hands. She struggled to control her breathing and her rampant emotions. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," she whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the chaos within had diminished. She gave a sigh of relief. Using her powers to piece together the mirror once more and return it to its place, she felt a relative state of calm. She knew, though, that this peace was merely an illusion. Every second of tranquility she had experienced in her life had been no more than a delusion fueled by her desire to escape what she was slowly and inevitably to become. She rested her forehead against the cool glass of the mirror for a moment. "What am I going to do?" she asked herself softly.

Her reverie was broken by a pounding on the door. Her head snapped upright and she walked almost robotically over to the door, moving slowly but surely. She was still significantly weakened by the day's events and it was painfully obvious even to Raven herself. The door slid open to reveal the face of Beast Boy, concern softening his features. Raven looked at him silently for a moment, still slightly disoriented from the events of the encounter with Slade.

"Uh, hi Raven," he said. Raven nodded mutely. "I just wanted to…you know…make sure you're OK. So…are you OK?" he asked.

Raven did not answer. She couldn't. She wasn't sure if she was OK or not. She just stared blankly at him.

"I guess not, huh?" he asked. Raven didn't respond in any way. "Uh…Raven?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what? You didn't do anything," Raven said, slightly perplexed.

"No, I'm sorry that…whatever happened…happened. You seem kinda freaked out, so I know it must've been bad," Beast Boy said.

"It's fine," Raven told him.

"No it isn't. Look at yourself, dude. You're acting so weird. Whatever he did messed you up pretty bad." he paused. "What _did _he do?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Raven said, lowering her gaze to the floor as she started to tremble slightly.

"Whoa," Beast Boy muttered, stepping forward slightly and extending a hand nervously. His hand stayed in the air for a moment as though he was unsure of what to do with it, and then he let it rest on her shoulder. Raven looked up at him questioningly. "It's gonna be OK," he said with a firm nod. Raven watched him, unable to stop her trembling.

Beast Boy looked at her as though he was trying to decipher the thoughts going on in her head, and then he dropped his eyes from hers, letting his hand fall back to his side. "Um…" he muttered, hand rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"'um' what?" Raven asked, a bit of her normal manner recovering itself for just a fraction of a second.

"Well…back there when I didn't know what was going on I…I was really worried about you. I didn't know what was happening or if you were even OK or what and I… I was scared." he paused to gather himself, because his eyes had become damp. "And it made me realize that I…I care about you more than I ever showed you." he coughed a few times. "You mean more to me than I ever really…let you see."

Raven looked at him for a moment, eyes starting to tremble. "Beast Boy…" she wasn't sure what to say to this. It was the first time she could recall him ever getting this sentimental with her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you…" she pulled nervously at her long violet locks with one hand.

"It's OK," Beast Boy said softly. "I just…I wanted to-" he cut himself off and stepped forward, wrapping his arms tightly around the Azarathian in a snug, comforting hug. She stiffened in surprise, slightly overwhelmed by the gesture. Beast Boy didn't seem to mind that she wasn't hugging him back. He continued to stand there with his arms locked around her, resting his head on her shoulder and shaking a bit.

Raven slowly and slightly uneasily hugged the changeling back. He nuzzled her shoulder gently, shocking her even further.

"I'm sorry," he said shakily. "I never…I never showed you how much I cared about you. What if something had happened today and I never saw you again?"

"Beast Boy, calm down. I'm fine," Raven reassured him, still a bit struck by the fact that he was hugging her. Beast Boy nodded shakily and lifted his head from her shoulder.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

Raven paused for a moment, and then nodded slightly. "I'm sure," she told him. He was looking her straight in the eye, something he rarely did. There was a look on his face that she couldn't recall ever seeing before.

"Are you alright?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow very slightly.

He didn't respond for a moment, and when he did, nothing in the universe could have prepared Raven for that response. He spoke not a word. He simply placed one hand on each side of her head, pulled her toward him, and kissed her firmly and squarely on the lips. Raven's eyes widened and the contents of her bookshelf went hurling forward across the room, pelting into other things and knocking them over. Raven was in too much shock to pull away.

The kiss was soft and desperately gentle. This was something Raven had never experienced. She wasn't exactly sure whether to kiss him back or to punch the life out of him for kissing her.

Beast Boy only kissed her for thirty seconds or so before letting go of her and stepping back.

"Beast Boy, what the f-"

"Um…see you later, Raven!" Beast Boy said, flashing her a nervous smile and taking off at a run down the hallway.

Raven stood in the doorway for a moment, the shock slowly draining away from her body. When it vanished her, she was left with a strange, unfamiliar feeling in her stomach. She slowly raised one hand to her lips, touching the place where he had kissed her, and found herself giving a small smile in the direction he had gone. She stood there like this for a moment before lowering her hand and retreating back into her room, shaking her head in a preoccupied sort of way.

'_He did it out of desperation, maybe. It didn't mean anything. But why did it have to feel so nice?'_

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**There we go. I might continue this, but I'm not sure. **


End file.
